When a Japanese student kills a San Diego woman in a car crash, she inadvertently brings a demon back with her to Tokyo.

Synopsis:

Koichi Yamano records his sister Haruka’s return to Japan after a car accident in San Diego, California fractured both of her legs. Their father Shigeyuki travels to Singapore for business, leaving Koichi to care for his injured sister.

Haruka tells her brother that her wheelchair moved by itself during the night. Koichi places a small pile of sea salt in his sister’s bedroom and shows her a recording the next day of the salt scattering by itself while she slept. Haruka dismisses Koichi’s theory of paranormal activity, but reluctantly allows him to set up a camera in her bedroom. The first night is uneventful, though the second night produces evidence of a knocking noise outside Haruka’s door.

While the siblings argue about the possible activity and the continued filming, a glass on the dinner table shatters suddenly. That night, Haruka’s bedroom door opens and an invisible presence tugs at her bed sheet.

Koichi’s friend Jun Nagoshi, Jun’s girlfriend Mai Yaguchi, and Mai’s friend Misuzu Kure visit Haruka and Koichi. Misuzu, who has a psychic sixth sense, enters Haruka’s room and begins foaming at the mouth. She and her friends are forced to leave immediately.

Koichi investigates strange noises downstairs. He finds flickering lights and loud music blaring from the stereo. Picture frame glass breaks over photos of Koichi’s face, prompting him to put a camera in his room in addition to the one in his sister’s. Haruka is frightened awake that night, claiming that the presence touched her. When Koichi checks on her, they hear footsteps in the hallway before her bedroom door closes suddenly.

A Shinto priest purifies the house. After the ceremony, he assures the siblings that the evil presence has been removed.

Koichi talks to his sister about her car accident in America. She reveals that the woman she hit was a killer who murdered her boyfriend and tried to escape. Haruka hit her when the woman ran in front of Haruka’s car. The woman died.

Shigeyuki returns home after Koichi calls to tell him what is happening. That night, the wheelchair in Haruka’s room moves on its own. In the morning, Koichi reviews the footage and realizes that the presence is still in the house. He calls the priest who performed the purification ceremony and learns that the priest died from a heart attack right after leaving the Yamano’s house.

Koichi hears his sister screaming in the night, but his door is locked. When he finally makes it to Haruka’s room, she frantically claims that the presence attempted to pull her under the bed by her hair.

Haruka calls her father’s cell phone the next day, but he does not answer. Haruka tells her brother that she experienced similar strange phenomena while recovering in America, but she assumed it was related to the hospital. An Internet search for “Katie San Diego murder” uncovers stories on the paranormal activity that plagued Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. Haruka comes to believe that the demon that haunted Katie transferred to Haruka after she killed Katie in the car accident.

Koichi hears his sister scream outside the house and finds her with a bite mark on her arm. Koichi puts Haruka to bed with a cross in her hand. She drops the cross and the windows in her bedroom shatter before the cross spontaneously combusts.

The presence enters Haruka’s room again that night. She goes into a trance and leaves her bed. Koichi is woken by her scream and is led to a closet where he discovers his father’s corpse. Now possessed, Haruka appears from behind and throws her brother into the camera.

Koichi escapes to the street and into a passing taxicab. Haruka suddenly appears in front of the taxi. The cab hits her and then crashes.

While he identifies the cab driver’s body in the morgue, the invisible presence pulls an injured Koichi offscreen as he screams. The camera feed cuts out. When it returns, Haruka stumbles into frame and peers into the lens.

Review:

J-horror earned its own sub-genre classification because Japanese fright films often lean in a different direction than their Western counterparts. The general distinction is that American horror deals more in the physical terrors of slashers, serial killers, and similarly tangible threats. Asian themes are heavier on phantasmagoric elements, particularly spirits, poltergeists, and vengeful ghosts.

Which makes “Paranormal Activity” an especially ripe franchise for an Asian-specific spinoff. The top tagline touts “Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night” as “The Official Japanese Sequel,” although it is unclear to which word the term “official” actually applies.

Opening credits associate “Tokyo Night” as “based on the film Paranormal Activity by Oren Peli.” To my knowledge, the series proper has not outright disowned the film’s existence, though it is never mentioned either. This may be a case of grey area copyright law and international film distribution tactics like the one that saw Lucio Fulci’s Italian production of “Zombie” released overseas as a sequel to George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead.” One thing that can be agreed upon with certainty is that this sequel is officially Japanese.

Exchange student Haruka Yamano has her trip to America cut short after breaking both legs in a car accident. Her father is called away on business at the same time, leaving Haruka’s brother Koichi as the lone caretaker while rehabilitating back home in Japan.

Haruka is insistent that her wheelchair moved across the bedroom on its own while she slept. On a hunch, Koichi puts a pile of sea salt in his sister’s room, sets up a video camera, and the siblings watch in astonishment the next day when the recording shows the salt inexplicably scattering about the floor.

This is about as ridiculously fast as anyone can jump to the conclusion that a house is haunted, but at least “Tokyo Night” does not waste time putting the wheels in motion. With enough weirdness to make the siblings say “hmmm,” Koichi keeps the cameras rolling as suspicion grows that Haruka may have brought an unseen presence back with her from the United States.

“Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night” is a largely empty shell. As a worthy addition to the PA legacy, there is as much distance between “Tokyo Night” and its predecessor as there is between the locations of the two movies.

For two-thirds of the screenplay, the paranormal activity and the people experiencing it have too little context for events to register as meaningful. In the original “Paranormal Activity,” there was an unusual amount of specificity given to the demon and its motivations. A clear endgame remained in sight with regard to what the entity wanted, what it was doing, and how it was accomplishing its tortuous torment.

Here, the paranormal presence repeats the M.O., but his purpose is more ambiguous. Usual scenes of bed sheet tugging and disembodied footsteps are a crutch substituting for genuinely chilling creeps.

There is less a feeling of escalating tension and more a sense that the demon is unsure how to terrorize these teenagers. So it thumps down the hallway, invisibly flings open the bedroom door, and flutters a curtain before moving furniture or linens around. If no one figures out what happened until the tape is reviewed, then the demon repeats the steps until finally convincing Haruka to give up a yell.

Around the 54-minute mark, “Tokyo Night” fills in the backstory with a kernel that ties nicely to the first “Paranormal Activity.” It also makes the story seem not as much like a random smattering of yawn-inducing ghost encounters.

(Although predictable, MILD SPOILER ahead for anyone who would prefer the revelation remain an “ooh” moment.)

The fact that Haruka’s accident took place in San Diego was already an obvious clue. It turns out that the woman she hit and killed in the wreck that broke Haruka’s legs was Katie Featherston. With Katie dead, the demon latched on to Haruka and made the jump across the Pacific Ocean.

This detail is at odds with how Katie’s post-PA1 timeline actually played out, which is what popularly renders “Tokyo Night” as a non-canon entry in the PA series. Looking at it another way, it can be argued that dead is not necessarily dead in the PA universe. Who is to say that Haruka did not kill Katie and Katie reanimated? If Katie can morph into a demon face before killing her family, she can probably return from the dead, too. Technically, developments in the other PA sequels do not have to render this one impossible.

Although the movie is dry and slow to gain speed, it does capitalize on its subtitle. “Tokyo Night” delivers authentic Japanese flavor with a Shinto priest purification ceremony and depictions of a Japanese lifestyle that make the film slightly more than a straight rehash recast with Asian actors.

The flipside of the culture switch is that it adds a perception of discomfort to the main players. Koichi and Haruka have an incestuous subtext playing between them. This is either a personal misreading of their interaction or a translation gap in language or custom. A particular line of dialogue emphasizes the strange tether when a friend tells Koichi, “no wonder you don’t have a girlfriend when you see your hot sister everyday.” Giving the film the benefit of the doubt, maybe that was a mistranslated subtitle.

Odd observations aside, not much distinguishes “Tokyo Night” as a “found footage” horror film, a “Paranormal Activity” sequel, or a ghost story. Whether with a camera dumped on a table to record action without concern for composition, a lead actress overselling terror with exasperated breathing, or unnecessary characters disappearing faster than audience interest in the story, “Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night” transcends cultural boundaries. Which is another way of saying that the movie proves concepts like cash-ins, clichés, and slow-paced boredom mean the same thing in any language.